The Songbird and the Wolf

[ II ] Iron and Silver

Somewhere in the depths of Hell, a wolf lay dying.

This isn't new, rather a plight Quinn had spent the last two years in.

By now the barren, filthy cell was the only home he knew. Never entirely convinced the world beyond had ever been more than a distant, cruel dream.

No longer could he taste the pinewood, the fresh snow, the hunt on the air.

No longer could he feel the howl of the wind, whipping through his fur.

No longer could he remember the rush of moonlight flooding his veins.

All of it, now little more than a distant, fading memory.

Memories he had spent the last years fighting desperately, relentlessly to return to.

But as he lay, throat slit and bleeding into the filthy concrete - the fight, the hope he had spent so long holding on to, drains from him with the red.

They had stormed his cell, terrified despite the chains holding him perfectly still. Slit his throat and run, left him here to die and rot far from the winds, the forests and moonlight.

Men under orders, but tormentors all the same.

If nothing else, he could die with the knowledge he had kept from them the one thing they had kept him alive for when the rest of his squadron had been killed long ago.

His only comfort.

Without these chains a slit throat; even one from the bite of a silver dagger, would have been inconsequential.

Now even his healing has been stolen from him.

Quinn wouldn't admit it, but some small part of him is happy to at last accept his fate.

Through the stalactites that are the silver bars to this cramped cell, the sound of movement catches what remains of his fleeting senses.

They've come to finish the job. He barely has the energy to flick dark eyes in the direction of the dull, flickering light.

A distant door crashes open, the sound thunderous, explosive, followed by a stampede of boots against dirt.

The Wolf opens lead weighted eyes, to meet his death in the eye.

But instead of the barrel of a gun, the faces he finds are dumbfounded. A barrage of curses echoing in the barren chamber.

His vision is blurred, the silhouettes hazy against the black.

Hallucinations. A voice tells him, the same, comforting voice that beckons him to close his eyes and sleep. Relent to the darkness pulling at the edges of his fading vision.

"What in the name of God? Why do they have a dog down here?"

A bitter, barking laugh sounds. "Why do they have anything down here?" A challenge, but the fear to it isn't masked from the wolf. "All part of their sick games."

Terror sweeps through the room, the strangers reek of it.

"That's... That's no dog..." a younger voice responds, a nervous certainty to his tone.

A metallic rattling reverberates into his core, until with a wrench the door is forced open.

"Just shoot it," this time at least there is a tone of sorrow to the words. "Put the poor thing out of its misery."

"Put it down," another voice agrees from the dark.

Quinn is distantly aware of the glint of gun muzzles, pointing at him through the dim light.